A Year of Creating Futures: 14 Giving Profiles

UW Matching Initiative Founders show uncommon dedication to the UW
Among the University’s most extraordinary and generous friends are the UW Founders, a group that has made an uncommon commitment to the future of the institution through the UW Matching Initiative. Gifts from the UW Founders (together with funds from the University) have created a pool of resources that may be used to match donors’ contributions on a one-to-two basis. Within two years of its launch in 2004, the UW Matching Initiative has exceeded its initial goal of $120 million, raising more than $132 million in new endowed student and faculty support. UW Founders, committed to ensuring that the UW continues to thrive well into the future, include David Bonderman (’63), Jeff (’64, ’67) and Susan Brotman, William H. (’49, ’50) and Mimi Gates, Nick (’81) and Leslie (’92) Hanauer, Sally B. and William H. Neukom, Bruce (’56) and Jeannie Nordstrom, Lucille Schimel (’52), Conrad (’63) and Charlotte Tobin (’66), Starbucks Corporation and the Washington Research Foundation.

Planning ahead to fight disease
Retired Oceanography professor George C. Anderson (’54) has established a planned gift that will enhance the 15-year-old Robert W. Anderson Endowed Fund for Research in AIDS. The endowment has supported the work of UW Medicine researchers on projects ranging from the development of the Family AIDS Center for Education and Service in Kisumu, Kenya, to the investigation of the effect of zinc supplementation on gastrointestinal illness in HIV-infected patients. Professor Anderson and his late wife, Harriett, created the fund in memory of their son. The planned gift is intended to provide for a chair in Medicine and enhance the endowment’s potential to help UW researchers make important medical discoveries. Professor Anderson has been connected to the UW for more than five decades, first as a Ph.D. student, and later as a faculty member and director of the School of Oceanography.

Scan|Design by Inger and Jens Bruun Foundation forges partnership with the UW
Jens Christensen Bruun and his wife, Inger, opened their first Scan|Design furniture store in Bellevue in the early 1960s, with additional stores soon cropping up in Washington, Oregon and Hawaii. Throughout the years, the Bruuns nurtured their love of their native Denmark by sponsoring nearly 150 Danish youths who came to the United States to learn about American business and culture. With Jens Bruun’s death in 2002, the Scan|Design by Inger and Jens Bruun Foundation, based in Seattle and Denmark, declared its mission to carry on the Bruuns’ interests in Danish-American relations and in pain research. Last spring, the foundation contributed to the Virtual Reality Program at Harborview Medical Center, advancing the development of pioneering techniques for managing pain. In addition, the foundation’s support for the Department of Scandinavian Studies will fund ongoing student exchanges between Denmark and the United States, paving the way for a long-term partnership between the foundation and the University.

Friends and supporters join forces to endow chair in glass art for Dale Chihuly
Distinguished alumnus and glass master Dale Chihuly (‘65) helped put the Pacific Northwest on the map as an epicenter for glass. Now, thanks to the generosity of art lovers, Chihuly friends, colleagues and supporters, the UW School of Art is gaining momentum in its efforts to create an endowed chair in his name. The Dale Chihuly Endowed Chair in Glass will enable the University of Washington to enhance the excellence of a new MFA program in glass, expected to be in place in 2007. Gifts and pledges have come from Jeff (‘64, ‘67 ) and Susan Brotman, Jack and Becky Benaroya, Gladys and Sam (‘37) Rubinstein, Anne Gould Hauberg Trust, Duff Kennedy (‘52), Gerry and Linda (‘63) Nordberg, Norm and Elisabeth Sandler and various other friends. The new chair and the new glass program will honor an esteemed alumnus and further enhance the cultural richness of
the region as a destination for the creation of modern art in glass.

Opening doors to undergraduate research
The first UW lab solely dedicated to undergraduate research opened last fall in the Department of Electrical Engineering thanks to the generosity of Tektronix Inc., a long-time supporter of the College of Engineering. The Tektronix Undergraduate Research Lab was made possible through a donation of equipment and furniture to outfit the lab. Beaverton, Oregon-based Tektronix is a test, measurement and monitoring company that provides measurement equipment to the communications, computer and semiconductor industries worldwide. Over the years, Tektronix has provided deep discounts on equipment purchases for the College of Engineering to ensure that it can offer well-equipped labs to its students. A number of the company’s employees and executives graduated from the UW with degrees in electrical engineering. “This new lab provides a unique opportunity for undergrads to work on cutting-edge measurement equipment,” says David Allstot, chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering. “This is an opportunity they couldn’t get elsewhere.”

Lucky students travel to Alaska and D.C.
With support from the Lucky Seven Foundation and UW friend Tom Campion, a small group of UW students
made a very large journey last year. Twelve students — six undergraduates and six graduates — rafted through
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska and met with scientific, environmental, political, federal and Native leaders as part of a month-long new course offered by the UW’s Program on the Environment, “Choices and Change in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.” The course — offered again in 2006 — included discussions and guest speakers in Seattle; the arctic visit; and intensive debriefing in Fairbanks. The class focused on the complex issues surrounding the 19 million-acre ANWR, a lightning rod for debate about energy and wilderness policy. Separate from the class, 10 students traveled to Washington, D.C. in September to discuss their experiences in ANWR with Northwest elected officials. Funds from the Lucky Seven Foundation supported that trip as well.

Seminar series takes off with Boeing gift
A gift from The Boeing Company to the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs will bring a new public seminar series to the UW, helping students and the community to explore how to involve citizens in resolving tough policy issues such as homelessness, social and economic disparities, and religious expression. The seminar series, “Civic Engagement for the 21st Century,” features former Seattle Mayor Norman B. Rice (’72, ’74). In conjunction with the gift, the Evans School has appointed Rice to create and lead the series and has named him a Distinguished Visiting Practitioner-in-Residence, a three-year appointment that brings the former mayor back to his alma mater. “Norm Rice’s accomplishments as a forward-thinking public leader are nationally acclaimed,”
says Evans School Dean Sandra O. Archibald. “He is uniquely qualified to work with our faculty, students and civic leaders to teach the tools he used so successfully to engage communities in innovative, collaborative solutions to complex public problems.”

Gates law scholarships encourage public service
Within weeks of hearing about the new William H. Gates Public Service Law Scholarship Program, Vanessa Torres Hernandez had taken the Law School Admission Test and submitted her application to the UW School of Law. In April, the public school teacher was named one of the first five recipients of the William H. Gates Public Service Law Scholarship. The scholarship was funded by Bill and Melinda Gates, through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in honor of the 80th birthday of Bill Gates Sr. (’49, ’50), prominent Seattle attorney, civic leader, and graduate of the School of Law. “We knew that the best possible gift for my father would be one that supports and continues his long tradition of service by opening opportunities to others,” Bill Gates says. The scholarship program covers tuition, books, room and board, and incidental expenses during law school in exchange for a five-year commitment to work in public service.

Need for nurses inspires giving
Palmer J. “Jack” and Evelyn McCarter made an important gift in recognition of both the role nurses play in providing compassionate bedside care and the School of Nursing’s top-place ranking. Concerned about the current shortage of nurses, the McCarters wanted to help draw more young men and women to the profession — and to honor their close friends and relatives who are nurses — by creating the Palmer J. and Evelyn McCarter Family Endowed Scholarship in Nursing. The McCarters also designated a gift by bequest that will sustain the endowment. The scholarships, which begin this fall, are awarded on the basis of academic merit and financial need. “Scholarship support allows our bright and passionate students to focus fully on their education,” says Dean Nancy Woods. “The McCarters are wonderful friends of the School whose generosity will make a difference in the lives of students today and for years to come.”

The power of parents
As the largest comprehensive research library in the Pacific Northwest, the UW Libraries system offers students millions of titles and more than 50,000 serial subscriptions to supplement and enhance their classroom education. Parents of UW undergraduates have further enhanced the Libraries’ resources through their support for the Libraries Parents Collections and Programs Endowment. The endowment provides critical resources to the UW’s 30,000 undergraduates by enabling the Libraries to purchase academic books, periodicals, audio, video and digital resources not provided for in the state budget. In addition, the endowment supports career and graduate school information resources; undergraduate research and writing center programs; English language program materials; tutoring services and other programs to help students make the most of their time in the libraries, in the classroom, and in the world beyond the University.

Helping freshman get a jump on business
Richard Cable (‘72) turned his UW business education into a successful career as CEO of Swain’s Department store in Port Angeles. Now he and his wife, Glenda, are extending opportunities to young business students through their support of scholarships for freshmen with financial need who have been admitted to the Business School Freshman Admission Program (FRAP). The FRAP, which enrolls students with exceptional academic records immediately out of high school and prior to completion of university-level prerequisites, enables students to get a jump start on their business education. “In the past we often were not able to attract certain students to our program because they received offers of far greater financial aid from other national business schools,” says Pete Dukes, associate dean for undergraduate programs at the Business School. “The Richard Cable and Glenda Swain Cable Scholarship will be a tremendous boost in helping us attract the truly outstanding Freshman Admission Program student who has financial need.”

Forests may hold answers to fuel crisis
Faculty in the College of Forest Resources are looking to the trees for answers to the world’s fuel crisis, thanks to support from longtime friends Mary Ellen (’51) and W. Richard Denman (’50). The couple’s extraordinary commitment to create the Denman Chair in Bio-Resource Science is giving UW faculty the resources they need to discover and explore ways to produce biomass for conversion to energy, chemicals and alternative fuel sources, such as creating biofuel from pulp and paper industry byproducts, forest thinnings, and cellulose from trees. The endowment will enable the College to attract faculty who are leaders in the science and engineering needed to sustainably manufacture products from natural resources.“The College is rapidly building up research capability in this area,” says Rick Gustafson, the first holder of the Denman Chair. “We are exploring how to get the biomass we need while preserving and helping the forests we love.”

Friends remember Hunter Simpson by enhancing chair in bioengineering
Co-founder of the Washington Research Foundation (WRF) and bioengineering pioneer W. Hunter Simpson (’49) and his wife, Dottie (’82), were recognized for a lifetime of support to the University of Washington in 2004 with the creation of the Hunter and Dorothy Simpson Endowed Chair in Bioengineering. The prestigious chair was created through gifts from many friends and colleagues, along with a lead gift by WRF and matching funds from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Upon Hunter Simpson’s death in January 2006, friends honored his memory through additional contributions to this endowment. Current holder of the Simpson Chair is Dr. Yongmin Kim, leader of the Department of Bioengineering, who says, “It meant a great deal to UW Bioengineering to honor Hunter and Dottie during his lifetime. Hunter’s legacy of technology commercialization serves as an inspiration for faculty and students alike.”

An obligation fulfilled
Washington native Marr P. Mullen (’55) went east for his undergraduate degree, then returned home to attend the UW School of Medicine. He trained in orthopaedics, eventually specializing in joint reconstruction and spine correction surgery. When Mullen retired in 1997, he didn’t slow down. In addition to spending quality time with his Harley-Davidson motorcycle, he remains active in his profession through volunteer work on the Medical Quality Assurance Commission. Mullen is grateful for his education. “I owe my livelihood to the training I got from the UW Orthopaedics Department,” he says. In turn, Mullen and his wife, Nancy, have made several gifts to the School of Medicine. One planned gift supports an endowed residency fund in orthopaedics; another provides unrestricted funds. The Mullens also support the Class of ’55 scholarship fund. For the Mullens, giving is a pretty simple priority. “Everybody,” Mullen says, “has some kind of obligation to give back to the community.”

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